North Staffs Green Party has joined residents in the Stoke-on-Trent community of Meir in expressing concern about the latest phase of a housing development.
Bellway Homes have lodged detailed proposals with
Stoke-on-Trent City Council to build 181 homes on greenfield land off
Caverswall Lane.
In late December last year Persimmon Homes were given
permission by the council to build 169 homes on the site. This latest
application would, if approved, extend the number to 350.
In a statement published in the Sentinel last weekend
Bellway Homes say the development will deliver a range of terraced,
semi-detached, and detached homes.
These, they said will be ‘sympathetically designed’
and delivered in a ‘high quality landscaped setting’ with an existing hedgerow
along the eastern boundary being retained.
The original application attracted strong opposition
from residents with 49 people submitting objections and a 700-signature
petition against the site being developed.
Concern about access to the site has been expressed in
relation to both developments, currently the only route in and out is via ‘The
Wood’, although it has been suggested another route may be created.
Even were this to happen one resident told North
Staffs Green Party it will still create a ‘nightmare’ on the ‘tiny streets of
our estate’.
A spokesperson for North Staffs Greens said, ‘we have
written to the council raising concerns about access and the fact that, again,
they have opted to build on a greenfield site when there is brownfield land
available’.
Research carried out for the Campaign to Protect Rural
England in October last year found there is enough brownfield land available to
meet the government’s objective of building 300,000 homes a year for the next
five years, much of which already has planning permission [1].
The CPRE has called on the government to do more to
make it attractive for developers to make use of brownfield sites. This
includes making it easier to identify and analyze sites, providing funding to
make doing so more affordable [2].
The spokesperson went on to say, ‘at a time when
concern is growing about climate change and the rapid decline in biodiversity,
we should not be developing green spaces because whatever mitigations
developers put in place nature will inevitably be harmed’.
Details of the application can be found at [3],
planners are due to make a decision on 23rd November.
(Picture Credit: Jey Harvey)
[1]https://www.cpre.org.uk/about-us/cpre-media/enough-brownfield-land-to-meet-targets/
[2] https://www.cpre.org.uk/explainer/an-introduction-to-brownfield/
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